HIDIZS MD4 (Review) – Hit With Switches

INTRO

The HIDIZS MD4 aims to please everyone with 12 tuning options combined between switches and eartips. If you haven’t checked out some of their other greatest hits such as the S9 Pro Dongle or the AP80 Pro-X, I suggest you go have a look. The HIDIZS MS1 Mermaid got mixed reviews from us, but I took on the challenge of seeing what they cooked up. Cue up the cheesy montage of movie dress-up scenes and come along for the director commentary.

While there feels like an overabundance of single dynamic mid-tier IEMs, HIDIZS MD4 decided to stick with the more complex full balanced armature 4 driver setup. The shells have built-in 3D printed sound tubes to make sure sound exits correctly and not just bouncing around inside the shell like budget offerings. It has all the ingredients of a proper mid-tier IEM, and caters perhaps to an eastern audience.

Disclaimer: These were free-ninety-nine from HIDIZS, and they sent me the white ones because I didn’t specify. Tested at $169 at the time of review.

GOOD TRAITS

• Generous complete package (case, tips, cable)
• Excellent Fitment (For me)
• Isolation
• Various tuning options

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

• Non-splashly cable
• Technical abilities clouded
• Case is too big to fit comfortably in a pants pocket.
• Hot tuning can lead to strained treble
• Impedance dips to around 5 ohms, source and power can impact sound

PACKAGE CONTENTS

While I don’t comment on packaging normally, I did enjoy the easy of which the HIDIZS MD4 box opened. Inside were the earphones, followed by 3 different types of tips, and finally the square leather carrying case that make it impractical to fit in your pants but looks uber cool pulling out of a bag. The cable is 2 twisted strands a notch above budget offering twisted cables, and it does the job of not transferring too many microphonics.

The shell of the HIDIZS MD4 is large solid metal with a fancy marbled stone appearance faceplate offered in White, Black and Blue and matching painted shell color. Nozzle length is Goldilocks for me, as well as the shape. Surprisingly, the switches were solid and hard to switch without some small tool like the included earpiece cleaning brush. I had always assumed these switch based earphones might have an additional mode of failure for later in life, but these switches feel high quality.

ADJUSTABLE PARAMETERS

Based on their product page:
0,0 (off, off)=default treble enhanced
1,0 (on, off)=Balanced
1,1 (on, on)=Bass Enhanced
0,1 (off, on)=Warm

Let me describe the three types of eartips of the HIDIZS MD4 that do what they say:
1) Balanced=Firm full length stem with firm medium opening size
2) Bass=Olive shaped, medium length stem with medium firmness, larger opening than balanced set and squishier opening
3) Vocal=Shorter is length, shortest stem that is also thinner that is only thick on the very bottom, wide opening, very soft and squishy.

The bass tips clearly increase the upper bass thickening vocals and sounding a bit too full at times depending on 1,0 mode or 1,1 mode. With 0,0 or 0,1 this is a way to balance out the sharpness of the treble. For me the 0,0 with the bass tips was a good match, while the 0,1 is sort of jarring on both ends of the frequency spectrum.

Vocal Tips with mode 0,1 is a lot of upper midrange to take in, not my desired tuning, but for those that really want to be immersed and have a very forward experience this is it. 1,1 mode was well balanced bordering on nothing exciting. I enjoyed them most with 1,0 mode, and 0,0 was not as sterile as 0,0+balanced tips.

Balanced tips work best with modes 1,1 and 0,1 although 1,0 is good too if you want to really warm it up. These come installed by default with 0,0 which for me was too clinical sounding. Again personal preferences, I seem to lean to towards warmer sets these days, but can appreciate other tunings depending on mood. That is what makes this set so great.

SOUND

Reviewing a set like the HIDIZS MD4 is one of the more challenging endeavors due to the fact of having to pick a tuning and give a general description or trying to portray all combinations. While I used the 1,0 mode with the vocal tips as my preference, I might point out some other combos that highlight other things better.

Overall the HIDIZS MD4 bass is quick and snappy with not much emphasis down low. Utilizing the dual bass balanced armature drivers centered around a midbass hump, everything through the lower midrange sounds a bit colored and chesty. Between tips and switches, the bass/lower midrange can be colored or less colored to your liking.

Midrange is probably the weakest area, depending on tips it goes from sounding a tad dull, to edgy and pushing the envelope. I feel that one of my better vocal oriented sets is the TinHifi T2+, and the HIDIZS in mode 0,0/1,1 just can’t reach that level of transparency for example listening to some Holly Cole Trio – I Can See Clearly Now.

HIDIZS MD4 treble is nicely done and knows that wideband elevation makes for an exciting listen. Again using the tips and switches is it easy to dial in some extra boost and air to make them sound very delicate or really sterile without ear piercing. They can run rather hot sounding, the lower treble boost is on average 10-13db, but if we look at a smoothed 1/3 octave it doesn’t appear as boosted and my ears agree. The graphs make it appear worse than it sounds, so I included the 1/3 octave for reference which is more inline with how our brains interpret adjacent bands.

TECHNICALITIES

For being a four BA 3 way, I was hoping for some good separation, instead the HIDIZS MD4 feel a little narrow and congested on busier pieces. Timbre is not something I would associate with these, instead they come of more analytical and PA speaker sounding. Width and depth are balanced between the two, neither stands out.

Isolation is excellent, but that also depends on fitment for some. Sensitivity is on the lower side, but driven from my LG G8 with no issues. Some power helps given the low impedance. A good dongle would easily drive these as well.

QUICK COMPARISONS

The HIDIZS MD4 even in warm setting does not compete with one of my warm favorites the Shozy Form 1.4 ($179) , the Shozy bass is just excellent with more depth and fullness, and the MD4 just sounds more forceful than the sweetness of the Shozy as you continue up the spectrum.

Comparing to the Moondrop Kato ($179), the MD4 bass is thicker and less resolving, but the treble actually sounds more restrained towards the top. I attribute that to the super wide bass lower midrange hump. Width and depth are comparable, the Moondrop sounds less congested due the cleaner bass profile.

FINAL REMARKS

While the HIDIZS MD4 does not meet my preferred tuning style given the colored lower midrange and lack of bass fullness, others might like this style and it does take the edge off the hot treble. It’s all relative as they say. I love the fitment and the isolation, but this is one of those YMMV scenarios. The value proposition is that you get 12 tunings for the price of $169, but the tunings are not drastic changes but more nuanced. If your focus is towards accentuated treble with a colored bass profile, these might be up your alley.

SPECIFICATIONS

GRAPHS

• Left vs Right
• Balanced Eartip Switch Comparison
• Bass Eartip Switch Comparison
• Vocal Eartip Switch Comparison
• Switch Comparison Normalized and 1/3 octave smoothing
• Eartip Comparison 1/24 octave
• Impedance

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DISCLAIMER

Get it direct from HIDIZS or from other retailers.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

About my measurements.